How do I know how much RAM I can add?

[TheUnfinished]

Hi there,

I currently have 4gb (2x2) of RAM in my Scan 3XS PC, but would like to increase it to cope with the increasing number of high-resource sample libraries I'm purchasing.

I'm toying with buying either a 4gb upgrade, or two 4gb sticks. I just wondered what I can add to my PC before it either makes no difference or the PC is not set-up to utilise the extra RAM.

I'm using a 64-bit Cubase 5 DAW environment and a number of 64-bit applications, as well as some 32-bit.

If you need more information from me, I'll post it up. I'm not sure what info is needed to asnwer this question.

Thanks,
Matt

[IronWarrior]

Find out what motherboard you have, look up the specs and see how many RAM slots and what it can take.

But if you have 4GB already, then 4GB is enough really, what do you use the PC for?

[TheUnfinished]

Hi Iron Warrior.

Have done what you suggested. It appears the capacity is 16gb (4x4). I use my PC for soundtrack composing and often have several channels running numerous software applications and sample libraries at once.

A lot of my contemporaries are running anywhere bwetween 8gb and 24gb!

Cheers.

[IronWarrior]

Ah in that case, I would think more RAM would help you but am not sure about that!

[PeteG@Scan]

You can only access more than 4GB of memory if your working with 64 bit windows and applications, which it looks like you are, so it's certainly an option.

How much of a difference will it make is another question. Sound track work is notable as being one of the few sections of the market where the more memory the better (We've got some users complaining that 24GB isn't enough!!!) but this does come down to the applications and plugs that you are running.

Some sound libaries disk stream (Kontact for instance) so memory space isn't as important, althrough it'll help a bit and it'll all get a bit more snappy with the extra memory being made available. Some plugs still prefer to work with physical ram through and with these you need to load up on as much ram as you can with a prime example being Vienna (VSL) which can have templates of over 20Gb's with ease.

4Gb does seem on the low side (win 7 prefers 2Gb to itself) and I imagine you'd get some performance increase whilst working on heavy projects if you increased to 8Gb althrough past that is completly dependent on what plugs you run and how memory intensive they might be.